In a flash of brilliance, Susan decided she wanted to hire a boss. A website is created; buzz is generated using social media. Employers noticed; connections made and Susan got hired (Here’s the story).

Is the above example an exception or is this the new norm for our age? 

Susan is obviously very smart, but the undeniable fact is – it’s getting easier and easier for job seekers and candidates to find one another. Unlike any other time in memory, job seekers has never been richer with options and tools to express themselves, get noticed and connect with employers.  As Clay Shirky puts it -  “The moment we’re living through, the moment our historic generation is living through, is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history.”

If you are a middleman who earns a living by connecting job seekers and employers, is the new status quo a threat? Where do you fit in a world where job seekers are armed to the teeth with options (many of them just don’t know it yet), and employers’ sourcing toolbox gets richer?

So, here is the question to ask – what can you do exceedingly well which employers cannot do very well themselves? What can you offer job seekers that’s not available anywhere else?

Unless you can figure out a way to maintain (or enhance) the existing triangular nexus, employment transactions will increasingly be a two-way nexus.

Conversations on Whirlpool are raw, honest and seldom kind to recruiters. Are recruiters worthless? One of the most popular forums asked. The answer:

The graph, with all its flaws (I suspect many of the respondents are job seekers), presents two immediate opportunities for recruitment firms:

1) An opportunity to be different. Majority of employers (at least those who took the survey), rightly or wrongly, have a negative opinion of recruiters. In other words, many employers are yet to encounter a recruitment firm who ‘wowed’ them. So, why not be the first? Why be banded with the rest of the competition?

2) Though a minority, employers who value and love the services of recruiters exists; converted fans, who are ready and willing to spread the good news. Shouldn’t you reach out to your current fans? Help them to help you?

The survey is flawed, but the truth is recruitment service is a commodity. Choose the narrow road; be remarkable.  Potential new clients will notice, and existing fans will spread your story.

Armed with a sharp focus (team leader recruitment) and a brilliant marketing strategy, we thought teamleader.com.au is a breath of fresh air. Recently, we broke bread with James Adonis, co-founder/director of teamleaders.com.au and international expert on employee engagement, and he sheds some light on his background, company and how to find ‘good team leaders’.

James can be reached at james@jamesadonis.com or + 61 402 334 987

DT. James, tell us a bit about your background and how teamleaders.com.au came about? Why do you choose to focus on team leaders?
JA: I’ve dedicated my entire career to obsessively researching and understanding what it takes to create highly engaged employees. As a result, I set up “Team Leaders” because I am convinced that they have the greatest influence in the workplace. What Team Leaders say and do every day determines whether their employees perform well or perform badly, so I really wanted to create a program that was (a) targeted specifically for this group of people, and (b) delivered in a way that is unparalleled in this country.

DT. Besides core recruitment services you offer a ‘development program’ component. Can you shed some light on this?
JA: Team Leader development program is a 12-month experience which incorporates a one-day workshop which is followed by monthly group mentoring sessions, monthly audio programs, books, newsletters, and online forums. It’s been designed in this way because a recent study showed that over 80% of the funds that companies spend on training goes to waste. I believe there are two reasons for this. Firstly, learning outcomes aren’t reinforced over a period of time, and secondly, the delivery doesn’t target every learning style. Our development program meets both of these objectives.

Q. In your opinion, what do you think is the demand and supply situation for team leaders. Which industries do you think have the most demand for ‘team leaders’?JA: Team Leaders are especially in demand in call centres and administration teams. But the term “Team Leader” also applies to branch managers, retail managers, and basically anyone and everyone who managers front-line employees.

Q Are team leaders born or made? Is there a universal set of skills that all team leaders share in common?
JA: A bit of both. If you’re born with a high degree of emotional intelligence, it’s much easier to be a brilliant Team Leader. In saying that, there are core skills that can be easily learned by anyone who truly wants to excel in this role. The universal set of skills for Team Leaders would be:

- An ability to communicate well
- An understanding of the coaching and feedback process
- An awareness of how to respond to tricky situations like poor performance, conflict, change, and negative employees
- A solid comprehension of what motivates people

DT: What makes a good team leader? Can you lay down the five most important traits?
JA: The five core characteristics of the world’s most amazing Team Leaders are:

- A genuine love of people
- A cheerful disposition
- A passion for achieving high levels of performance in themselves and in others
- Self-awareness
- A focus on building relationships not only with their employees, but also with their managers and colleagues

DT. What must employers do to find and hire the best team leaders?
JA: The first step is to look within. Some of the best Team Leaders aren’t even Team Leaders. The biggest mistake companies make is to promote the most technically-proficient people to the role of Team Leader.

Technically-competent people should be moved to specialist roles. It’s the people-lovers who need to be Team Leaders. So, my first piece of advice is to always be grooming your people-lovers so that they can step up to the Team Leader role. Aside from that, my “Team Leaders” company is the only one in Australia that specialises in recruiting Team Leaders – and only Team Leaders.

DT. Lately, everyone’s concern is the economic downturn. What do you think will be outlook for team leaders in the near future, say the next 12 months?
JA: Economic downturns tend to affect middle managers more than Team Leaders, so I think they’ll be okay. The biggest impact will be on maintaining morale and engagement in their teams because the financial uncertainty is likely to affect their employees’ attitudes, especially if there are retrenchments occurring within their organisations.

How would you address a staff turnover rate of 49% or higher?

Staff turnover is the main challenge facing most employers and HR practitioners in the Australian call centre industry. According to the 2008 Australian Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Study, staff turnover in the call centre industry rose from 35% in 2007 to 49% in 2008 (even higher in sectors like transport and freight). Heavily populated by Generation Y, who doesn’t see their jobs as a full-time career, the industry is plagued by rampant attrition; costing employers an average of AU$21,667 to replace a staff.  Alarmingly, close to 75% of staff who left their jobs also quit the industry for good. No wonder, this is an industry grappling with enormous human capital management challenges.

To understand a bit more about talent acquisition issues in the Call Centre industry we caught up with Linda Simonsen, Founder/MD of FuturePeople, a specialist call centre recruitment firm. Close on the heels of being nominated for the Telstra Business Award, Linda discussed the staffing challenges faced by the call centre industry, Generation Y, the issue of offshoring jobs and the importance of EVP (Employee value proposition).

Interview transcripts (pdf)

Linda can be reached on 02 9252 0633  or  LSimonsen@futurepeople.com.au

Seth wrote about the importance of standing up for something. He mentioned:

“To really stand for something, you must make difficult decisions, mostly about what you don’t do. We don’t ship products like that, we don’t stand for employees like that (“you’re fired”), we don’t fix problems like that.

It’s so hard to stand up, to not compromise, to give up an account or lose a vote or not tell a journalist what they want to hear. But those are the only moments where standing for something actually counts, the only times that people will actually come to believe that you in fact actually stand for something.”

I received an email from Teamleaders.com.au this morning, offering me free e-books on talent management.

A visit to their website quickly reveals what they stand for – “We only recruit Team Leaders. And that’s it. We don’t recruit middle managers or executives, administrators or operators. We only recruit Team Leaders”.

This is a refreshing break from the reasoning of a  typical recruitment firm, which goes something like this -  if we can recruit a Team Leader for a company, it will open opportunities to recruit the whole team.

What does your recruitment firm stands for?